Michigan wants to become a hub for hydrogen production, fueling stations

LANSING – Michigan is part of an effort to build hydrogen infrastructure in the Midwest. 

The Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen (MachH2) has received $22 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to plan several projects, three of which are in Michigan.

The alliance, backed by the Michigan Infrastructure Office, wants to expand the Flint Mass Transportation Authority’s fleet of hydrogen fuel buses. 

There are plans to build a hydrogen production facility in Ypsilanti, in partnership with the American Center for Mobility. And the other proposed project would be a hydrogen fuel truck stop in Detroit.

Hydrogen is a clean energy alternative to electrifying heavy-duty trucks, according to the alliance. Electrifying big trucks, especially for long-haul travel, is challenging with current technology because of the size, weight, and charge time of electric batteries.

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Michigan is a great candidate for building hydrogen fuel infrastructure because it gets so much heavy-duty truck traffic, said Neil Banwart, the chief integration officer for MachH2.

“We’d really like to work to help set up the infrastructure to make the conversion to fuel cell vehicles,” he said.

But to support hydrogen-fueled trucks, the state needs to build fueling stations and higher-capacity production facilities. There are a couple of large-scale hydrogen production facilities in the Midwest, but they’re not close to Michigan.

“We think it’s important to have some production somewhat local, so you don’t have to move the clean molecules such long distances,” said Banwart. 

The truck stop in Detroit would service trucks crossing the border to Canada, while production facilities in Flint and Ypsilanti would supply fuel for hydrogen-powered heavy-duty vehicles.

But there’s debate about how “clean” hydrogen fuel is because hydrogen production can generate greenhouse gas emissions depending on the production method used.

Applicants must use hydrogen production methods that produce less than a certain amount of greenhouse gases for their projects to be eligible for the award, according to the Department of Energy.

The production facility proposed in Ypsilanti would use green hydrogen, produced using renewable energy systems like solar panels, according to the department.

The clean hydrogen alliance is a coalition of stakeholders in the hydrogen fuel business, ranging from university research teams to government agencies to large corporations. Members include the Michigan Infrastructure Office, Air Liquide, Argonne National Laboratory and Exxon Mobil.

The coalition has nine projects planned for the Midwest in four states: Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Michigan. 

The $22.1 million grant will pay to plan those nine projects. The alliance expects up to $1 billion in cost-sharing from the federal government over the course of all projects, Banwart said.

The planning phase starts with the grant and will continue into early 2026.

Elinor Epperson has an environmental reporting internship under the MSU Knight Center for Environmental Journalism’s diversity reporting partnership with the Mott News Collaborative and Capital News Service. This story was produced for Michigan Public.